Jan 8, 2016

2016 Goals


Happy New Year! I hope your 2016 has been full of good stuff and not a cold like our family has been passing around an cannot kick to the curb. It's put the brakes on starting the year at full speed but clearly that's what we need so I'm trying not to complain.

I got a little mom time at Starbucks recently to do some planning for the new year and I'm pretty excited with what I came up with.

I'm not a big fan of resolutions. I AM a big fan of goals but even those have been hard for me to follow through with most of the time. My attention span is short and while I should be focused on something 100%, I start learning about something else that I NEED TO TRY RIGHT NOW and then I'm in a hopeless situation trying to balance all of these interests at once when I have approximately 4 hours a day to either spend with my husband or doing stuff for myself when Zoe is napping or asleep at night.

I've always had a lot of interests and thus a lot of goals but I also haven't been very good at focusing on them since having Zoe because some things seem impossible during this season of life. I want to do fun crafts to decorate our house, but I'm sleepy. I want to read hundreds of books, but I cant read unless the dishes are done and oops, what do you know, it's bed time and I'm sleepy. Basically, it's hard for me to focus and see the importance of these interests for many reasons but mainly procrastination and laziness. I've wanted to spend time figuring out my God-given talents and gifts but really haven't made that a priority, even though I know they have to do with creating. And of course God wants us to make time to create since He is the ultimate Creator!

So! My word for 2016 is EXPLORE. And I will spend each month exploring something I have an interest in. Each month will look different and the results of each month will look different. I love little 30 day challenges and I think creating my own in a way will be a great way to explore what's been on my heart, try it out, and if I don't care about it as much as I thought, I can toss it to the curb at the end of the month. If, however, I discover I absolutely love doing something, I can find a way to incorporate it into my life in a realistic way.

I've chosen each month specifically for different reasons which I'll probably explain at the beginning of each month. I also have a few alternative topics in case I get to that month and have absolutely no interest in that topic anymore. I've also combined a few because it made sense to me. Here they are:

January: Decluttering
February: Organizing and decorating
March: Marriage and family
April: Garden and outdoor decorating
May: The community and travel
June: Parenting and preschool education
July: Reading
August: Photography
September: Exercise and health
October: No-buy month!
November: Cooking and baking
December: Giving

Alternatives include: Feminism (from the original, Catholic perspective), logic and reasoning (NOT my strong suits), and music (not creating music--I have zero interest in that--but discovering new genres and artists).

There are other goals that I'm trying to work on now that I want to be more regular, not something I just do for a month and then stop. These goals focus more on a lose daily and weekly schedule. Daily, I feel so much better if I get up before the baby and read the daily readings and some other spiritual reading. I feel even better if I can get some housework out of the way! At night, I love going to bed with a fairly clean house and reading or talking to Landon before a bedtime of 9:30ish. In between waking and sleeping, getting a load of laundry completely done and focusing on cleaning a room a day makes cleaning feel more manageable.

Weekly, I want to carve out time for what I feel is important. I like to spend some time planning out my week and meal planning on Saturday or Sunday. With The Bachelor back on, a group of girlfriends and I have a fairly regular "Girl's Night" on Monday or Tuesday, which is always needed. Since having Zoe, I severely neglect things like painting my nails or doing extra skincare treatments, so I want to incorporate a weekly "pamper" night for myself. Friday night is date night, even if it's just at home on the couch. I also want to find a permanent hour in the week to spend in Adoration because I know that's my favorite way to pray, but I just don't make the time for it like I used to.

For the month of January, I'm trying to get more used to Snapchat and sharing my daily life. I've wanted to make YouTube videos for a long time but 1. I'm a scaredy cat and 2. I know NOTHING about making videos so I figured this would be a good way to try it out in a less scary way. It's fun but I really struggle with the whole living in the moment vs. documenting EVERYTHING thing so I'm trying to work out a balance that is good for me and our family. Because if Zoe sees my phone she will not rest until she gets it into her grubby little baby hands and homegirl is by my side 24/7.

I'm learning accountability is a HUGE part of keeping to your goals so I'm hoping to share my experiences each month as a way to be held accountable. I also want to hear your goals or resolutions! Let me know what you've decided on so I can hold you accountable, too :)

1 comment:

  1. This is such a great idea! I have a tendency to make resolutions and then make a whole new set of them halfway through the year (or two months in) because my focus changes -- so your solution works great!

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